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quarta-feira, 30 de julho de 2014

IT1is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy; that the world
owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery and
be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, which involves in some sort
all the population, to be the reason of the difficulty experienced at
Christmas and New Year and other times, in bestowing gifts; since it is
always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts. But
the impediment lies in the choosing. If at any time it comes into my head
that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until
the opportunity is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers,
because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the
utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern
countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a
work-house. Nature does not cocker us; we are children, not pets; she is not
fond; everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal
laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of
love and beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery even though we are
not deceived by it, because is shows that we are of importance enough to be
courted. Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom
these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts, because they
are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic values being attached
to them. If a man should send to me to come a hundred miles to visit him and
should set before me a basket of fine summer-fruit, I should think there was
some proportion between the labor and the reward.

For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty
every day, and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option; since if
the man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you could
procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a man eat bread,
or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is always a great
satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity does everything well. In
our condition of universal dependence it seems heroic to let the petitioner
be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great
inconvenience. If it be a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others
the office of punishing him. I can think, of many parts I should prefer
playing to that of the Furies.3 Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift, which one of my
friends prescribed, is that we might convey to some person that which
properly belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him in
thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part
barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The
only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet
brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem;
the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a
handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores
society in so far to the primary basis, when a man’s biography is conveyed in
his gift, and every man’s wealth is an index of his merit.
But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me
something which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith’s.
This is fit for kings, and rich men who represent kings, and a false state of
property, to make presents of gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical
sin-offering, or payment of blackmail.

The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires
careful sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive
gifts. How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not quite
forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. We
can receive anything from love, for that is a way of receiving it from
ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to bestow. We sometimes hate the
meat which we eat, because there seems something of degrading dependence in
living by it:—

We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society if
it do not give us, besides earth and fire and water, opportunity, love,
reverence and objects of veneration.

He is a good man who can receive a gift well. We are
either glad or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some
violence I think is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at
a gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes from
such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported;6 and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that
the donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not
him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me,
correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, then my
goods pass to him, and his to me.7 All his are mine, all mine his. I say to him, How can you give me
this pot of oil or this flagon of wine when all your oil and wine is mine,
which belief of mine this gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful,
not useful things, for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore
when the beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons, not
at all considering the value of the gift but looking back to the greater
store it was taken from,—I rather sympathize with the beneficiary than with
the anger of my lord Timons. For the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is
continually punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is
a great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning from one who
has had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, this
of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A golden
text for these gentlemen is that which I so admire in the Buddhist, who never
thanks, and who says, “Do not flatter your benefactors.”

The reason of these discords I conceive to be that there
is no commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything
to a magnanimous person. After you have served him he at once puts you in
debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend is trivial and
selfish compared with the to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve
his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the
benefit it is in my power to render him seems small. Besides, our action on
each other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random that we can
seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for a
benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct
stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom have the
satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit which is directly received. But
rectitude scatters favors on every side without knowing it, and receives with
wonder the thanks of all people.

I
fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is the genius
and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to prescribe. Let him give
kingdoms of flower-leaves indifferently. There are
persons from whom we always expect fairy-tokens; let us not cease to expect
them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our municipal rules. For
the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought and sold. The best of
hospitality and of generosity is also not in the will, but in fate. I find that
I am not much to you; you do not need me; you do not feel me; then am I thrust
out of doors, though you proffer me house and lands. No services are of any
value, but only likeness. When I have attempted to join myself to others by
services, it proved an intellectual trick,—no more. They eat your service like
apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you and delight in you
all the time.

A fly by imagination

And life passes so quickly...

Because literature is part of our history.

The main idea of this Blog is spread the habit of reading. Literature is part of our lives. When enter in the Literature world, we read better and we improve our though and imagination.I want, with this, divide a little of my dreams. Is to give opportunity to people read and know about works produced by ancient and contemporary writers, and mainly, myself to be insert in this wonderful world of the Letters.